Strength and reliability are important issues relevant to shelving systems. In many conventional shelving system designs, a tradeoff exists between strength and reliability and other features, including manufacturability, material costs, and adjustability. Often times, individual shelves experience loading conditions that cause them to fail prematurely. Examples of failure include plastic (i.e., non-elastic) deformation due to bending or buckling, dynamic fracture, and fatigue-induced fracture. Cantilevered shelves are particularly susceptible to these types of failure when subjected to repeated impact loading, for example, when heavy loads are dropped onto the shelf from an appreciable height. Such failure leads to undesirable downtime, repair, or replacement, and the costs associated therewith.